"Brian Daley - Requiem For a Ruler of Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

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REQUIEM FOR A RULER OF WORLDS
Brian Daley
To Lucia, with love, thanks, and, admiration.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My gratitude to Lil and Ron Drumheller for their kindness and interest.
I'm also much beholden for the contributions of Owen Lock, who's been endowed by Destiny with all
the things that define a truly great editor: a touch of the poet; perception; imagination; expense account
lunches; an understanding, good-humored wife named Arleen; and most importantly, a convertible couch.


" тАж and let him be cast forth, into the exterior darkness."
Matthew 22:13


PROLOGUEтАФIN THE TIME OF THE THIRD BREATH
Stormclouds for my winding sheet, Caspahr Weir thought with approval as his chair floated out
over the meadow.
A towering black front was rolling toward him, outlined in blue-green by Guileless Giles, the larger of
Epiphany's two moons. That he'd helped nature along, ordering his meteorological engineers to shape the
night's tempest, didn't detract from Weir's enjoyment. He was accustomed to arranging things to suit
himself. And, he'd decided, a person as close to death as he could be forgiven a little theatricality.
Certainly his life had been filled with high drama, triumphs, and defeats.
He wondered what they'd say about him when he was gone. Perhaps a paraphrasing of an ancient
Earth barb, one of his favorites: He was never more popular than when he died.
Fifty light-years inside what had, within living memory, been a special corner of hell, Director
Weir-sometimes known as Weir the DefenderтАФtouched a control on the arm of his chair. It descended
slowly toward the meadow's thick, tangled carpet of ribbon grass. By craning his head a bitтАФpanting
with the effort, feeling dizziness assail him againтАФhe could see his home, stronghold, and palace,
Frostpile.
It was a lofty dream-megastructure, veined like intaglio and lighting the night. Frostpile was composed
of domes, turrets, and spires; citadels like shark fins; outlying forms that often put visitors in mind of
moored dirigibles cut from crystal.
Begun almost thirty Standard years earlier, it wasn't quite completed yet. A pity тАж
Director Weir winced as the chair jostled the least bit, settling onto the oily ribbon grass. He
automatically reached for a control to make built-in medical apparatus mute his pain. But the control
wasn't there; he'd chosen to soar forth from Frostpile in his old chair, unencumbered by machinery that
was fighting a futile holding action.
At least this is a seat of power, he thought, and not a flying geriatrics clinic. Its arms, of beautiful
teak from Brimstone, worn by his hands and the years, comforted him. The chair had served him for a
decade before the damned sawbones and his sister had browbeaten him into using an airborne deathbed.
 He smiled his chagrin at his own absentmindedness and took his hand away from where the missing
control ought to be, lowering it into his lap slowly, trembling with the effort. No pain interdiction tonight!
No message blockers or neuroinhibitors; no dulling drugs. He wanted to experience everything, even the
pain; it was time to die.
The deathwatch had already summoned together loved ones, friends, and allies, along with others for
whom he had little or no regard. If it made them feel better to gather there on Epiphany, the Director had